Review the thread for discussion of why West coast vs East... centers around being close to Hawthorne seen as an advantage, and the East coast frequency is so high that there might not be time to incorporate lessons learned before the next catch attempt.

"I think it would be great to be born on Earth and to die on Mars. Just hopefully not at the point of impact." -Elon Musk"We're a little bit like the dog who caught the bus" - Musk after CRS-8 S1 successfully landed on ASDS OCISLY

"I think it would be great to be born on Earth and to die on Mars. Just hopefully not at the point of impact." -Elon Musk"We're a little bit like the dog who caught the bus" - Musk after CRS-8 S1 successfully landed on ASDS OCISLY

On the SAOCOM-1A webcast the host said there would be no attempt to recover the fairing on this mission. I wonder if that was the plan all along or did something come up?

I don't think it was the original plan because they hustled to get the arms and supporting booms refitted on Mr. Steven in the days leading up to the launch. Prior to this "rearming", they had been off the ship for at least a month. But then the ship never left port. I suppose it's possible that was just coincidental timing, but I doubt it. Outsider consensus seems to be that high sea states was the problem, though this is as yet unconfirmed.

"I think it would be great to be born on Earth and to die on Mars. Just hopefully not at the point of impact." -Elon Musk"We're a little bit like the dog who caught the bus" - Musk after CRS-8 S1 successfully landed on ASDS OCISLY

"I think it would be great to be born on Earth and to die on Mars. Just hopefully not at the point of impact." -Elon Musk"We're a little bit like the dog who caught the bus" - Musk after CRS-8 S1 successfully landed on ASDS OCISLY

Mr. Steven doesn't track the fairing half visually, but via radar and transponders. The system is good enough to attempt fairing catch attempts, even in darkness.

I'm sure the crew is more used to tracking things whilst manouvering visually. Eyeballs are a good back-up system, but work best in daylight. This is an experimental system; perhaps someone was more comfortable conducting those experiments in daylight until they're confident that relying on radar and transponders was going to work?

At the most recent launch from Vandenberg, at 19:54 in the video, you can see the fairings fly past the second stage from the view point of the stage. At 19:56, you can see a brief flash at the inside of the fairing, for half a second or so. After that, the fairing rotates such that it presents its outside to the engine exhaust. I have not seen that before.

At the most recent launch from Vandenberg, at 19:54 in the video, you can see the fairings fly past the second stage from the view point of the stage. At 19:56, you can see a brief flash at the inside of the fairing, for half a second or so. After that, the fairing rotates such that it presents its outside to the engine exhaust. I have not seen that before.

I disagree. IMO that 'flare' looks more like MVac exhaust interacting with the fairing. Because if that was intentional, then it should have fired far earlier since after that the worst effects of the plume have already occurred.

At the most recent launch from Vandenberg, at 19:54 in the video, you can see the fairings fly past the second stage from the view point of the stage. At 19:56, you can see a brief flash at the inside of the fairing, for half a second or so. After that, the fairing rotates such that it presents its outside to the engine exhaust. I have not seen that before.

I disagree. IMO that 'flare' looks more like MVac exhaust interacting with the fairing. Because if that was intentional, then it should have fired far earlier since after that the worst effects of the plume have already occurred.

he flare is inconsistent with engine exhaust interaction. I would expect the plume to hit the entire airing surface if it hits. How comes a small element, exactly at the middle of the fairing lights up but not the edges?

Also, I dont know how far the fairing is from the plume. The camera is a wide angle camera and could observe at a large angle out so that it might see the fairing way before the fairing encounters the plume. I assume they want a certain separation of the fairing and stage to prevent thruster firings to hit the satellite. An argument against a thruster might be that the flash is roughly in the middle of the fairing, close to the center of mass. For efficient steering, you want to put the thrusters away from the center of mass.